Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II (18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland. He ruled from 1894 until his abdication on March 15th, 1917. His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to an economic and military disaster. He led his country into World War I and thus into the demise of the Romanov dynasty. He was forced to abdicate early in the Russian Revolution of 1917 in which he and his family were imprisoned first in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, then later in the Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Nicholas II, his wife, his children, and prominent members of the family's attending staff were all murdered on the night of July 17, 1918, on the orders of Vladimir Lenin. Because he was killed on the orders of a man who imposed state-sponsored atheism on Russia, Nicholas II was canonized as a martyr of the Eastern Orthodox church. Secular historians have variously interpreted Nicholas as a hero, a tyrant, a fool, a competent leader who just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, or any number of other variants. Nicholas II in Worldwar In 1942, Fleetlord Atvar of the Race's Conquest Fleet was horrified to hear of the assassination of Nicholas II from Soviet Foreign Commisar Vyacheslav Molotov,In the Balance, pg. 79. who had taken part in the Russian Revolution;Ibid. pg. 80. Atvar had assumed that hereditary monarchy was the only political system a "civilized society" would adapt, as this was the only known government ever seen in the histories of Home, Halless 1, and Rabotev 2.Ibid. The murder of an Emperor was such an unthinkable idea for the Race that its languague did not include a word for such a crime. After briefly debating whether to refuse to recognize the regicidal Soviet regime as legitimate, Atvar decided to deal with Moscow as he would an imperial government because the events surrounding the death of Nicholas had already played out long before his fleet's arrival. However, by way of threatening Molotov, Atvar (naively) promised that "If need be, we will avenge your murdered emperor."Ibid., pg. 79. (Atvar was unable to keep his vow following the Peace of Cairo.) Nicholas was the first Tosevite for whom Atvar ever felt any sympathy. Nicholas II in "Uncle Alf" After Russia was defeated by Germany following a brief war in 1914, Nicholas II faced a communist revolution. In 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II, both to show that no hard feelings remained from the 1914 war, and on general principles of monarchical self-interest, helped his cousin put down the revolution and keep his throne.Atlantis and Other Places, pg. 343. In 1929, Feldwebel Adolf Hitler of the German Feldgendarmerie told his niece Geli Raubal that the Tsar "was and is a woolly headed fool of a Russian" for not hanging more revolutionaries in 1905 after a similar uprising occurred.Ibid., pg. 344. Nicholas II in Southern Victory In 1914, when Austria-Hungary issued a number of ultimata to Serbia following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a Serb in Sarajevo, Nicholas II (1868-1932?) promised to support the Serbs should they refuse the ultimata. They did, and Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, which had declared war on Serbia. The Great War followed.American Front, pg. 43. In 1917, after over two years of global war, Nicholas found himself facing a Red revolution, forcing Russia's withdrawal from the Great War.Breakthroughs, pg. 291. A protracted civil war followed. Ultimately, Nicholas and his supporters triumphed, and Nicholas remained emperor for the remainder of the 1920s.The Center Cannot Hold, pg. e.g., pg. 92.The Victorious Opposition, pg. 22.. The destruction resulting from the wars left Russia in such a poor state that in February, 1929, she was forced to suspend payment of a loan to banks in Austria-Hungary.Ibid., pg. 226. This caused a chain effect that led in turn to the worldwide stock market crash of that year.Ibid., pg. 235. Nicholas was succeeded as Tsar by his brother Mikhail II in the early 1930s.Ibid. Literary comment The specific references to Nicholas after 1917 are sparse and sketchy, so the precise chronology is based on educated guesses. 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